I’ve never had septic as an adult. But I know my Dad prefers septic to a sanitary sewer. Maybe because of cost???
We had septic as a kid when I was in southwestern Ohio and my grandfather (a civil engineer) was horrified that it was permitted given the clay we had for soil and the size of our yard. I do vaguely recall it stinking a bit in one certain place in our backyard.
Could be a dungeon; could be something else. Heck, perhaps multiple such rooms are needed to accommodate multiple homeowner interests.
Moat, Portcullis, and Murder Holes.
I always thought it would be good to do a 3 or 4 car garage with an entry door between the 2 garage doors to make sure there is plenty of room along with extra space on the outsides. Nothing like my 2 car garage where either you are opening into the walls or opening into the other car. I hate that.
Pretty sure that if you are in a city/county where municipal or other culinary water is provided in the street or within a certain distance, you are not allowed to drill your own well.
Soil and weather conditions dictate whether septic is easy or difficult. When my dad built his last home it was an option. It was a 6 bed 5 bath house, occupied by 6 at first then fewer over the years. He put in two in series. Because it was a warm climate with porous sandy soil it worked well. Anticipating 18 people for a thanksgiving week visit, he decided to have it pumped after 22 years. One was empty, the other only half full.
Our county has decent water, but drilled wells are a given on most properties.
Oh yeah, PEX plumbing, with a manifold distribution center. It functions like a fuse box does for electricity, single cutoff point for all pipes. You could do the same with copper, but it is more expensive.
Shut off valves on both sides of the water meter.
Water main tapped into next door neighbor’s water meter.
That would not be allowed here. The upstream from meter is the utility’s stuff, downstream is owner’s. The meter does have a cutoff valve built in in case you don’t pay.
Same here. Technically the city owns the meter and the whip here, so the city owns up to the meter and about 3’ after the meter.
Doesn’t help when they need to replace the water meter.
And while the “authorities” own the section upstream of the meter, it’s a matter of getting their okay to do it.
Not all that different from getting their okay to build the structure in the first place.
wait what? most people have their solid tanks pumped every 2-5 years. If you dont pump the solid tank, solids will overflow into the drain field and ruin the field.
but correct in that highly depends on the soil for how you drain liquids. Preferred small field downgrade from solid tank. But if in flood plane or just shale/clay soli, would require giant sand mound which may be the ugliest yard feature you could have.
so if building, check lot for “Perk”. no perk = giant ugly sand mound.
also people be flushing wet wipes!!
My water main has a shutoff valve just before the meter. I imagine that technically I’m probably not supposed to use it to turn the water on and off, but getting into the meter hole isn’t difficult and I can use the same key that I use for my sprinkling system to turn it on and off (or a wrench or channel locks) since it is just a regular valve, nothing special. I had a break between my water main after the meter and my sprinkler valve and when the guy from the city water department came he just shut it off and told me that after I got it fixed I could just turn it back on or call them and they would come out and turn it back on.
Since this is before the meter they would use that to shut the water off if they needed to replace the meter. I’m not sure why I would need another just after the meter, but if the water department got snippy about me shutting off their valve instead of calling them to do it and potentially flooding whatever, I could see how that might help. I know there is another valve just inside the basement when the line enters the house and it will shut off water to the rest of the house, but it is a bit of a pain to get to. Luckily, the house had a water softener installed and there is a valve there to shut it off along with the ability to by pass the water softener, and that is much more convenient. I haven’t checked whether that turns off the outside hose bibs but I think it does. So the only time I have to go to the meter is when the sprinkling system has a problem.
Luckyhat, you sure know a lot about poop.
I’m quite certain that my father first had our septic tank pumped after about 18 years and he said it didn’t need it but the buyers were insisting on it.
I’m not positive when the house was finished… it was a model home. So it got VERY light use the first year or so… a few toilet flushes / hand washings and nothing else (no dishwasher, no garbage disposal, no showers). Then there were 3 of us living there full time for 3 years then 1.5 people for the next 5 years then 1 person for 2 years and then renters for ~7 years.
That’s probably less use than is typical for a home that size: 3 bedrooms 2 baths to start and then they finished the basement making it 4 bedrooms 3 baths. 1 acre lot, clay soil.
From someone who built a house in the last handful of years…
If you bedrooms are upstairs, just have the laundry upstairs
With the way that wifi/bluetooth work nowadays, I don’t see a need for this anymore. Sonos baby!
This is a must. We did it and all our TVs are ethernet connected. In addition to this, put in “tech tubes” that go in the wall so your cords don’t show when you hang TVs
We have a wet bar plumbed, but haven’t put it in yet. Planning on the next year or so.